Theres more!

Read the full story in The NY Times.

Louisiana v. Callais is the next move in that plan. If the Court strikes down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, it will complete the project Hofeller started and Leo perfected, cementing minority rule through maps, money, and manipulated law.

That is what is really at stake.

Together, Hofeller’s gerrymandering blueprint and Leo’s court machine form the backbone of the modern GOP strategy. First, redraw the maps to lock in power.Then, reshape the courts to make those maps untouchable. Finally, rewrite the law so voters cannot fight back.

Louisiana’s argument in Louisiana v. Callais leans heavily on Fisher v. Texas. This is the same network using the same playbook: find the right case, pair it with the right judge, and reshape the law to make racial discrimination untouchable.

They did more than just placing judges.
Edward Blum, a Leo ally, built the model: recruit plaintiffs and push them to the Supreme Court.

BTW, Blum's Project on Fair
Representation was funded Shelby
County v. Holder, which gutted preclearance, and Fisher v. Texas.

Leo’s network stacked the courts with judges hostile to voting rights and civil rights. Through groups like the Judicial Crisis Network and Honest Elections Project, Leo’s dark money network poured hundreds of millions into confirming judges and advancing cases that chipped away at the VRA.

But the GOP did not stop at maps. They built a legal machine to make those gerrymanders untouchable. Enter Leonard Leo, co-chair of the Federalist Society and architect of the modern conservative judiciary.

Hofeller’s fingerprints were everywhere. He drew maps or collected racial data for many states including Alabama, Arizona, Mississippi, Missouri, and Texas. Even in Florida, where voters banned partisan gerrymandering, he helped run a secret shadow process that was later ruled unconstitutional.

Hofeller’s maps did not just use race data, they depended on it. He tracked thousands of Black students at North Carolina A&T State U by race, age, and voting status, then split the campus in half so their votes would be divided between two Republican-controlled districts.

It started with Thomas Hofeller, the GOP’s redistricting mastermind. When he died in 2018, he left behind 70,000 files showing exactly how Republicans used race data to redraw maps and entrench their power for decades. His files were the blueprint for modern racial gerrymandering.